Wren
Ch. 4
There was a student across from Brandon at his desk when Rich entered the university’s library. He waited his turn. Rich knew better than to interrupt when Brandon was helping a student.
“The item you’re looking for is in the miscellaneous arcana section, look for artifacts from around three-hundred years ago, and it shouldn’t be hard to find. And don’t forget, if you damage it, I’ll burn you alive.”
Brandon laughed, and the student let out an awkward chuckle. Most students could never tell how serious he was with his threats. Rich had known him for a while, though. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that he wouldn’t hurt a fly. It would be more accurate, however, to say that it never came to that. Brandon had the air of someone who would wear the same smile to a wedding or a funeral. This tended to put people ill-at-ease, but it meant that he never had to follow through on one of his threats.
The student scurried off down one of the adjacent corridors.
“Hey, Rich! What brings you here?”
“Nothing good. I was hoping you could help me figure something out.”
“Sure thing, that’s what I’m here for!” Even as a friend Rich was still creeped out by Brandon’s excitement being delivered in almost the same mild cheerfulness as everything else he says. “Or, at least that’s what I would be here for, if you were a student. But you’re a friend, so I’m still more than willing to help”
“My sword was stolen.”
“Do you want to take this to the other room? I’ll understand if this isn’t something you want to talk about publicly.”
“That’d be helpful. Which way?”
“Come with me.” Brandon snapped his fingers and suddenly Back in 30 minutes was expertly burned into the wood of his desk.
“You shouldn’t be so cavalier about using magic. You’ll miss those years when you’re older.”
“Don’t try to patronize me as if you’re so much older and wiser than me, don’t forget that as the clock turns I’m older than you. We don’t all have your hang-ups when it comes to magic. And besides, I already lost five years transitioning, what’s another couple days?”
Rich felt a slight flare of anger at hearing his own lackluster justification thrown back at him, even if Brandon didn’t know he was doing it. Brandon was leading him deep into the heart of the library. I thought Brandon only took his own privacy this seriously, Rich thought. They got to one of the private study rooms, and Brandon closed and locked the door behind them. Every surface in this room was coated in a thick layer of dust. If the university’s ever short on furniture, Rich thought, they can just take the stuff from here and leave behind the dust. He chuckled slightly.
Brandon pulled a seat out from the table, and there was a slight burning smell as he incinerated the thick layer of dust that had been covering it. He gestured Rich to sit.
“You must’ve lost another two years burning that much dust.”
“Very funny.”
“You could’ve just wiped it off. I’m pressed for time, but not that pressed.”
“Like I said, I’ve lost five years already, what’s another few days.”
“I think you just like burning things.”
“That is also true,” Brandon said. “But doesn’t everybody, kind of? Sit down, tell me what’s going on.” Rich sat in the chair. It hadn’t cooled down fully from the burning of the dust. It felt like someone had been sitting in it. Very recently. It was not a pleasant sensation. There were three other seats at the table, and Brandon took the one immediately to his right.
“So, what happened? Tell me everything.”
“What I know so far is that last night I got blackout drunk, then I got jumped right outside the Ox. When I woke up this morning, my sword was gone. I talked to Mags and she told me that there was a girl who came in right after me and was eyeing me all night. Left almost immediately after me as well.”
“Sounds like you just need to find this girl. I’m not sure what I could do to help but I assume you came here for a reason?”
“I think she may have been a shape changer. I wanted to ask you if that theory holds any water.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well she was filthy, looked like someone from the villages, but even though she racked up a huge tab, she had no problem covering it. She went from table to table, as if she was friends with everyone, and despite drinking enough to knock out a large horse, she was completely clear headed at the end of the night.”
“That would be very odd behavior for one of them. I mean they can hold their drink pretty well, but they generally don’t act with much motivation beyond immediate survival and reproduction. They’re not actually sapient.”
“What do you mean they’re not sapient?! How could something interact with people, carry out conversations, without being intelligent?”
“Are you familiar with the idea of the Osparian Room?”
“I imagine I’m about to be.”
“Imagine there’s a room. Inside the room is a dog, and a wall full of slips of paper. You can pass a slip of paper with a Osparian message written on it under the door, and this dog is trained to be able to retrieve a pre-written coherent response from the wall for anything you say to it. Would it be right to say that the dog is fluent in Osparian?”
“How is that possible? How could a shape changer hold that much information?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then how can you even know that it’s the case?”
“Shape changers can’t use magic.”
“So?”
“All intelligent creatures can use magic.”
“Well what about this?” Rich pulled the note out of his pocket, and handed it to Brandon.
“‘Carver Square’ huh? Where did you get this?”
“I think someone put it in my pocket when they passed me in the street.”
“Well it’s definitely in multiple different handwritings, which would suggest multiple personas, like a shape-changer has. But no shape changer I’ve ever heard of has been able to write. Let’s go see if we can find something on it.”
Brandon got up and Rich followed immediately behind him. He was led to an area of the library teeming with research on life. Shelves full of books reached all the way to the ceiling, with titles like A Treatise on the Aswarian Purple Toad and On the Origins of Dragons. Brandon stopped about two thirds of the way down the aisle, and pulled out a large tome entitled An Exhaustive Study on Shape Changers.
“This is a pretty old book. If I call out any names, check if there’s anything more recent by them.”
And so it went. Every few minutes, Brandon would mention the name of some researcher, and Rich would, if one existed, find a work by them. Brandon went through book after book, from A to Z of Shape Changers to Shape Changers: Pest, Parasite, or Symbiote? That last one seemed promising, but it turned out to not have anything particularly useful in it.
“I should probably get going, I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of.” Rich said “I’ll be back tomorrow in case you find anything.”
“Good luck, sorry I couldn’t be more help.” Even fully immersed in research, Brandon never ignored someone when they addressed him.